45 years ago today on 17 May 1976 The Brendan, captained by Tim Severin, left Kerry in Ireland for a 4,500 mile journey to Newfoundland.

45 years ago today on 17 May 1976, the 36 foot currach The Brendan, captained by Tim Severin, left Brandon creek in Kerry with its crew including George Maloney and Arthur Mangan in an attempt to retrace the voyage of Brendan the Navigator. Built in Crosshaven, Co. Cork in Ireland, the vessel, both built using only techniques and materials available in sixth century Ireland, made a 4,500 mile journey ending in Newfoundland. 

Using the 1,200 year old Navigatio Sancti Brendani Abbatis (The Voyage of Saint Brendan the Abbot) which dates back to at least 800 A.D. as his guidebook, the British explorer and writer theorised that the Navigatio - which tells the story of the voyage of the Irish Saint, Brendan the Navigator (c 484 - c 577) to “the Promised Land” far across the sea to the west - might actually be based on historical fact.

The Navigatio tells of Brendan’s adventures during his seven year voyage, mentioning landmarks such as “The Island of Sheep”, “The Paradise of Birds”, “pillars of crystal” and “mountains that hurled rocks”. En route from Dingle, the Brendan visited the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands, Iceland and rounded Greenland. On its way to “the Promised Land”, the crew noted many real-life parallels to St Brendan’s tall tales.

“I recreated the boat of St Brendan and set out to see what would happen, and it was in that way that I discovered for me, the fascination of travel wasn’t just space but being able to go back in time, and . . . that new dimension opened for me on the Atlantic,” he later said.

Severin set about building as close a replica of St Brendan’s boat as possible, sourcing oak and ash from Glennan Brothers in Longford and tanned leather from 25 oxen from a firm called Josiah Crogan in Cornwall. He consulted harness maker John O’Connell from Bishopstown in Cork. Hand-crafted with traditional tools, the 36-foot (11m), two-masted boat was built of Irish oak and ash, hand-lashed together with nearly two miles of leather thongs in 1600 knots, and wrapped with a patchwork of 49 traditionally tanned ox hides. The Brendan was then sealed with wool grease to protect against the salt water.

Severin and his crew sailed to the Aran Islands and from there to Iona, the Hebrides, the Faroe Islands (where they picked up artist, Trondur Patersson), before sailing on to Iceland and Greenland and from Greenland to Newfoundland. Just over a year after the launch of Brendan, Tim Severin and his crew landed at Musgrave Harbour on Peckford Island in Newfoundland and were welcomed as heroes by the locals who fully appreciated the navigational feat which proved that Brendan the Navigator may well have reached America, 500 years before the Viking Leif Erickson and a full 900 years before Christopher Columbus.

Severin undertook voyages to retrace the journey of Sinbad the Sailor from The One Thousand and One Nights in 1980 and 1981, and the voyages of legendary figures from Greek mythology such as Jason and the Argonauts in 1984 and Ulysses in 1985. He followed the knights of the First Crusade by riding on horseback to Jerusalem in 1987 and 1988. He rode with Mongol horsemen in 1990 to mark the 800th anniversary of the birth of Genghis Khan. That story was published in 1993 as The Search for Genghis Khan.

Severin published the story of his remarkable adventure in The Brendan Voyage, a book which became an international best seller that was translated into 16 languages. He also made a documentary film about the voyage. Passive fibre A prolific author, Severin also wrote a series of historical novels, The Vikings Series about a young Viking adventurer, Thorgils Leiffson who leaves the frozen shores of Greenland and sails as far as Byzantium. In addition, Severin wrote a series of novels about fictional 17th-century pirate, Hector Lynch, before turning his hand to a series of historical novels set in Anglo-Saxon England. He returned to Hector Lynch in his most recent work of fiction, Freebooter, which was published in 2017.

Four decades on, Tim Severin’s bestselling book The Brendan Voyage: Across the Atlantic in a leather boat remains a fantastic read. It is a classic adventure story, a page-turner written by a born storyteller.

The Brendan now resides at Craggaunowen, Co Clare. Tim Severin was born in Assam in India, the son of an English tea planter and died on 18 December 2020 at his home in Timoleague in West Cork, at the age of 80 years.